1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting head which alters the pressure in pressure-generating chambers communicated to nozzle openings and is equipped with piezoelectric elements having piezoelectric layers and electrodes that apply voltages to the piezoelectric layers, a liquid ejecting apparatus, a piezoelectric element, and a piezoelectric material.
2. Related Art
There is a piezoelectric element configured to pinch a piezoelectric material exhibiting an electromechanical transduction function, for example, a piezoelectric layer (piezoelectric film) composed of a crystallized dielectric material, between two electrodes. Such a piezoelectric element is mounted in, for example, a liquid ejecting head as an actuator apparatus in a bending vibration mode. Typical examples of the liquid ejecting head include an ink jet-type recording head in which a part of the pressure-generating chambers communicated to the nozzle openings that discharge ink droplets is composed of a vibrating plate, and the vibrating plate is deformed by a piezoelectric element so that the ink in the pressure-generating chambers is pressurized and discharged as ink droplets from the nozzle openings.
Piezoelectric materials used as the piezoelectric layer composing the piezoelectric element need to have high piezoelectric characteristics, and the typical examples include lead zirconate titanate (PZT) (refer to JP-A-2001-223404).
However, there is demand for a piezoelectric material to have a suppressed content of lead from the viewpoint of environment issues. Examples of the piezoelectric materials containing no lead include BiFeO3-based piezoelectric materials containing Bi and Fe. Specific examples include piezoelectric materials represented by (Bi1-x,Bax)(Fe1-x,Tix)O3, (0<x<1) (refer to JP-A-2007-287745).